


Riverdale: Founding Families as Symbolic of 20th Century America

by soyforramen



Category: Riverdale - Fandom
Genre: Coopers, History Analysis, Nerds need apply, The Andrews as the 1970's, The Coopers as the Golden Age of America, The Jones as the 1990's, The Lodges as the 1980's
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-22
Updated: 2017-09-22
Packaged: 2019-01-03 22:07:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,917
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12155751
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/soyforramen/pseuds/soyforramen
Summary: Historical analysis of Riverdale, looking at each of the founding families and the call-backs to particular times in history.





	Riverdale: Founding Families as Symbolic of 20th Century America

**Author's Note:**

> Cross posted on Tumblr, only with pictures.

The Coopers: Traditional, Timeless, Terrifying (or, the Coopers as a Tribute to the ‘Golden Age of America’) - Part 1

Fair warning, this will be laced with lots of sarcasm. If you’re reading something and wondering, it’s ~~probably~~ sarcasm. These are not in depth nor are they meant to be as I am not an academic nor do I play one on TV. If someone was to do this for actual course credit and/or Buzzfeed clicks, they’d probably put more into the analysis and actually source everything. Since they’re not, you’re stuck with me and what Google managed to pull up. My deepest apologies. 

Because the Coopers are a white, middle-class family I am focusing on the white, middle-class families of the 1950’s. The information contained herein does not apply to a large portion of the U.S. at that time. I am well aware of this because so much of what I’d normally cover in a historical overview does not apply. (Which is very sad because I’d love to really go in depth about how the student protest movements of the late sixties were firmly entrenched in the Civil Rights Movement and whether or not there is a parallel with how that political movement got rolled into white activism and how ‘black music’ also got subsumed into the ‘rock’ genre.)

Finally, if I say something and you start going ‘sources?’ or just outright refuting what I’m saying on anon – Look, Google exists. Go look stuff up first if you’re going to come at me because you don’t agree. Come back with actual facts and statistics and sources of your own. I am not pretending to be a font of knowledge in the least. I’m doing this in my own free-time. If you have corrections, great! Send them to me with a source and I’ll revise. If you’re just pissed off about something, in the sage words of Alabama, “Scroll on daddy til you get back home.” 

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1945 – 1965 The “Golden Age of America”

My original supposition was that the Coopers were representative of the 1960’s. I was wrong. In reality the Cooper clan are reminiscent of a much longer period, one that lasted from the end of WWII until the explosion of the mid-60’s. Why such a long period, you might ask? Is it merely a lazy attempt to have more historical material to work with? Of course it is astute reader! Because if school taught me anything it’s why do a deep and thoughtful analysis when you can just Google everything and call it a day. Mainly, though, it’s because this is an actual legit historical period that applies scarily well to the Coopers.

So what is the ‘Golden Age of America’? Essentially it’s when men where men, women were baby-makers, and everything that didn’t fit the idealized version of America was shoved to the back of the closet in the hopes that it would, somehow, disappear into Narnia. Characterized by an economic boom, now people could afford things like kids, cars, and color TV. Culturally not a whole hell of a lot happened on the surface in white, middle-class America. It’s not until you look deeper that you realize that unless you were white, male, and middle class you were probably weren’t in the best place politically or socially speaking. 

Back then if you were white and middle class you got married young, popped out those 2.5 kids, and kept your chin up while you did your damndest to keep up with the Joneses. 

So now that I’ve reduced 20 years into two paragraphs, let’s dive headfirst into this empty pool, shall we?

A Nightmare Life on 111 Elm Street, Riverdale, U.S.A.

In the years after WII the economy in the US was booming, so much so that income levels rose for all workers. The GDP rose $300 billion between 1940 and 1960, largely through government spending.*1 And along with an increase in income came the want to provide a better life for your family. Remember, the Great Depression in the US didn’t end until 1939, so most of the people working and raising families lived through it and remembered what it was like to go without. Now that they were in the middle of one of the most prosperous times in America it only made sense to get married, have kids, and live out the America Dream as best as they could. 

And now that kids were affordable again (put that coupon away Doris, I can it for you wholesale ), it made sense for people to move away from the cities and into safe, child friendly communities (read: white). This period is also known as the ‘Baby Boom,’ which I will assume you know about because of those Hepatitis C commercials and Denny’s Senior Special. Combine the want for a family with the GI Bill, which helped returning Vets go to college and purchase homes, it was often cheaper to buy a house in the suburbs than it was to rent in the city. This move also had a way of creating an isolated, homogenous culture, particular when it came to gender roles and the family.

The move also had a way of isolating women, something discussed later when we get to Alice.  
So what else do we need to know about status symbol land?*2 Well, for starters you got married young. The average age to get married in the 50’s was 20, a ‘historical fluke’ in comparison with the rest of American history.*3 And since getting divorced wasn’t really a thing unless you could prove cruelty by a spouse, that didn’t bode well for a healthy relationship in the long run. Also marriage was seen as a long term partnership, and often times women were encouraged to think of marriage as a career, not a romantic pursuit.*4 And If a man cheated or drank or hit his wife, obviously it was the wife’s fault and she needed to look at her behavior.

Even if you wanted to get a divorce, what would the neighbors and your family say? You’d hate for them to think ill of you for not being able to keep your man happy and loving. Besides, even if you did manage to convince a judge that your spouse was cruel, if you were the woman how would you support yourself and the kids? Women were often looked over for jobs in favor of men and if they were hired it was at a much lower rate of pay than men.*5 And their no-good father would only have to pay the bare minimum of support for the children, and that was only if he was the one at fault for the divorce, and if he didn’t pay. Well, hope you have a good lawyer because you’ll have to first bring suit against him and prove he hadn’t paid for the ‘bare minimum of support.’*6

Additionally there is also the social pressure put upon people to confirm to what your neighbors are saying, doing, buying, driving, etc. etc. If you didn’t you were often shunned from the community; there were no special little snowflakes to get their grubby little hands on a participation trophy here.*7 Just look at the TV shows available at the time. _Leave it to Beaver, Father Knows Best, I Love Lucy_. Dad went off to work, and Mom stayed home. (Lucy is particularly a symbol of this; every time she tries to get a job at home it fails miserable and she goes back to being a happy housewife.) According to self-help writers at the time, “[h]appiness was achieved by the mature individual who settled into work and family roles and learned to be socially cooperative, despite his compartmentalized and conflicted self.”*8 (Hello, Betty Cooper.) 

Compounding this was McCarthyism, or the political fearmongering that the Communists were everywhere. (Communists made up less than 50,000 people out of the 150 million Americans.*9 I did the math and my calculator wouldn’t even show me the percentage, just a bunch of 3’s and an e. Either it’s American made, Communist hating tool, or that percentage is so low as to be negligible. (Google’s calculator says it’s .033% of the population.)) Even worse, those damn reds looked and sounded exactly like you so you had no idea who they were. People were really concerned about the rise of communism, and with that kind of paranoia running so high it’s no wonder that people did their best to conform least they get deemed a communist and fired from their jobs. (They banned _Robin Hood_ for cripes sake. Because, you know, wealth distribution, evil authority, banging tunics, and if you’re lucky you’ll get an actor with an English accent.) It wasn’t until the late 1950’s that such fears political fearmongering began to ease.

At this point, everyone whose looked at this has fallen asleep or is screaming get to the point. I came here for stupid Riverdale meta, you’ve made like, one joke in reference to the Coopers. So I’ll get to it.

What does any of this babbling have to do with the Coopers? Well, for starters they’re a firmly middle-class family, arguably upper-middle class based on the house they own and Hal’s ability to afford both the time and the money to restore old cars ~~while simultaneously ignoring his family until one of them gets knocked up.~~ Alice said they straight out own the Register and owning any kind of business requires expenses and overhead at the very least, especially if she keeps chucking bricks through the windows. And unlike the Andrews they’re not shown to be facing any economic downturns.

The Coopers are also the largest family seen on screen in Riverdale (baby boom in that family, amiright?). Even with leaving Chic out of the picture, two parents and two kids is about one parent too many for Riverdale and one kid on screen too many for the Core4. It’s almost as if the Coopers are supposed to be presented as the classic nuclear family to project an image of the All-American dream. 

And while we don’t know for certain what the Cooper parents’ politics are, considering none of them can say the word abortion it’s a pretty safe assumption that Alice is at least fairly socially conservative.*10 And with Hal making a guest appearance every third episode to remind us that he exists and is somehow, inexplicably still married to Alice I’d argue he’s left parenting largely up to Alice. Especially since Betty seems to go to Hal only after Alice refuses to acknowledge Betty ever had a question in the first place. This goes back to the common theme that fathers were the breadwinners and the disciplinarians, whereas the mothers were the nurturers and caretakers of kids. Essentially Dad was there only to provide financial support to the family and got to take time off to do... whatever it was he did in the garage when he got off work. (Aren’t gender norms fun?) This meant that Dad was either working or out in the shop while Mom was the one running after the kids, creating a distant relationship between him and his family. While this idea slowly began to change, it still has deep roots in many families to this day.*12

In regards to conformity and McCarthyism, I’d like to point towards Alice Cooper as Exhibit A through Zed, starting with Jason Blossom’s death and how the Register handled it. Alice was ready, willing, and able to bird-dog the story about his death, going so far as to bribe the coroner to see his dead body. Whether or not this has to do solely with the fact that he knocked Polly up, it also seems like Alice is trying to make it seem like a warning to Betty and the rest of Riverdale that this is what happens when your family thinks they can get away with everything. (And from what we know about Jason from the storyline I feel pretty confident in saying he’s a Grade A Asshole.*13) Knowing Alice there’s a whole season’s worth of backstory there, but it’s doubtful we won’t see that until Season 6 when Penelope is holding a broken bottle of maple syrup to Alice’s throat at Cheryl’s graduation party. 

Exhibit A: Alice confronting Hermione by asking after Veronica in Episode 3 at the Taste of the Town.  
This is a kid whose being bullied by her peers and instead of pushing back on the people doing it (Chuck et al.), she instead puts it on Veronica. Even with having unlocked her tragic backstory (Level 4), really Alice? Instead of talking with Hermione, instead of saying, look, this is what the kids are saying talk to your kid, she tries to shame Hermione and Veronica both. 

Her intentions might have been good, seeing as how she was probably the type of girl “like Veronica”, but her execution sucks. Alice is using the tried and true method of shaming people into conformity where even the hint of sex is concerned. Because in the 50’s you didn’t talk about things like sex or sexual harassment. (Little wonder both Alice and Polly got pregnant. That will be talked about in a later part entitled, The Problem with Polly.) 

Go back and watch those old educational videos from the 50’s. A large theme is, don’t upset the boat. You want to be like Little Susie, don’t you? Well, that includes not going around with lots of boys and making sure your image is still pure and pristine. Why? Because while men want to sleep with you, they only want to marry a virgin. This goes back to the idea that marriage is a career for women which, at the time, made sense. If your main source of income, or your only source of income, was your husband and you had little career prospects, of course you’d do all you could to marry up. That was how you took care of yourself and your family. And from what we know about Alice and her past in the Southside, she married up and moved in with the rich kids. 

Exhibit B: With regard to America’s reaction to communism, which was only ever a red ‘erring, there’s one scene that really stands out to me. When Alice pulls Veronica and Betty into the Blue & Gold offices in Ep. 11.

This is the ‘Us vs. Them’ mentality that was rampant during this era. If you were a communist you were clearly against the US and it’s ideals. Here, Alice is immediately suspicious of anyone she cannot immediately disprove as being the murderer. She’s quick to blame even Jason’s parents for the murder (she called it! In the second episode!) and doesn’t seem to care about the fallout from the accusations she throws around.

Exhibit C: Episode 4, when Alice finds out Grundy is sexually manipulating Archie (it is not an affair, it is not a relationship; she’s a pedophile, period, full-stop, end of sentence. Writers, stop making these plotlines. They’re neither edgy, relevant, or sexy. It’s gross and does nothing but turn people off of what you’re trying to say), Alice drags both Betty and Fred along to confront them both. Alice means to be the judge, jury, and executioner of Grundy (GO ALICE SOMEONE NEEDS TO) and Archie (ALICE NO HE’S A KID).

When first asked why she’s doing this, Alice claims the moral high ground. “This is about hurting anyone, Archie. It’s about doing what’s right. _And of course informing the neighbors.”_ (The fact that it puts Archie in a bad light is just a bonus, I guess?) It seems like we’re meant to think that Alice meant to inform the neighbors about Grundy, but the fact that this is a small town full of gossips it wouldn’t be that difficult for anyone to put together the pieces. (See: Dilton laying the truth out in the Episode That Shall Not Be Named.) It isn’t until Betty pushes here that Alice finally admits that she’s holding court to show Betty “what kind of person Archie truly is.”

Alice isn’t here to protect the town from a sexual predator. She’s here to prove to Archie that he’s not a good choice to be her friend or boyfriend. That he doesn’t conform to her standards and what she expects out of Betty’s future. Then, even after everything Archie’s been through, she goes and tears him down just because she can, calling him “selfish and stupid.” (Alice, talk to me. What did Archie do to you to make you act that ugly? Surely it’s not just that Polly got knocked up by a red-head. Writers, get on that and get back to me in Season 2 with a full ten minutes of flash-back showing why he did that. And it better not just be how many times Archie ruined her peonies.*14

It isn’t until Betty starts putting the “crazy” card in play that Alice finally backs off.*15 Either she plays a good game of chicken, of Alice was ready and willing to print an article letting the entire town know what Grundy was doing and that Archie was involved. And yet her desire to avoid having people talk about her family, to keep people from saying “crazy runs in that family,” is enough to force Alice to drop the whole thing? Social image is more than enough to stop Alice in her tracks.

And it’s not just Betty that knows that’s her weak point. In Episode 8, Hal uses the phrase "What will the neighbors think?" as a way to try and keep Alice from throwing him out. How many times has Hal used this phrase to keep Alice from going against him or putting up a united front? I’ll bring this up later in the Alice vs. Motherhood section, but I wouldn’t be surprised if this was one of the more used tactics in the 50’s to ‘keep the little woman in line.’ 

(Bleh, I need to go bleach my fingers from typing that.) 

*1 https://www.shmoop.com/1950s/culture.html

*2 I know, I know, Mike Nesmith said the song ‘Pleasant Valley Sunday’ wasn’t about the suburbs but it works so I’m going with it. Also I firmly maintain he retconned it to seem edgy. Let me have my delusions. 

*3 Jill Brooke, HuffPost, ‘Did Feminism Cause Divorce?’ If someone married young, particularly in their teens, it was because they were a) upper class and were ‘married’ in order to combine wealth and/or political power or b) got knocked up. It made way more sense to wait to get married until you could support a family and for most of human history, apprenticeships were a thing. Just, go Google it. You’ll find articles on both sides of the aisle but again, look to who the writer is pointing to in order to prove someone got married super young.

*4 “A Glimpse into Marriage Advice from the 1950s”, Margarita Tartakosky, M.S., https://psychcentral.com/blog/archives/2012/02/27/a-glimpse-into-marriage-advice-from-the-1950s/ This whole article is illuminating and horrifying to my perpetually single self. For a further look into this if you share my same morbid outlook on history: “9 Absolutely Horrifying Marriage Tips from the 1950s” https://www.littlethings.com/marriage-tips-from-the-1950s/ , including the tips to “Keep Quiet,” “Wear Pink Underwear,” and “Don’t Be Mad If He Goes Astray.” Also: “7 Tips for Keeping Your Man (from the 1950s), Therese Oneil, http://mentalfloss.com/article/52108/7-tips-keeping-your-man-1950s And people wonder why women were are still so pissed off?

*5 Despite what most people think, a lot of women held a job in this period. One estimate put it at 50% of women working, but again this includes all of America and not the small slice I’m focusing on. So I’m going to point to the fact that a lot of times a family only had one car between them, and that one car was the one that got Dad into the city for work. Which meant the little women got to stay home and dust? Vacuum? Seek advice from Mommy’s Little Helpers?

*6 History of Child Support - http://www.child-support-laws-state-by-state.com/child-support.html I am greatly simplifying this largely because I still don’t know what state Riverdale is in or is supposed to allude to (and child support is a State issue despite Federal mandate) so I can’t drill down into the specifics. Because until 1975, it was really up to the state whether they wanted to pursue a case for failing to provide support for a child. If I’m wrong, please feel free to correct me, with sources, so I can update this section. 

*7 And yet the kids from this era grew up and started giving their kids participation trophies only then to complain about it. Loudly. Irony, doth thou protest too much?

*8 “Individualism and Conformity in the 1950s vs. the 1980’s”, Irene Taviss Thomson, page 10 of the PDF, http://tucnak.fsv.cuni.cz/~calda/Individualism_Conformity.pdf This is actually a really good read for any other nerds out there. Clear, succinct, and gets the point across very well.

*9 Anti-Communism in the 1950’s - https://www.gilderlehrman.org/history-by-era/fifties/essays/anti-communism-1950s Why this is beyond a paywall is beyond me. Seriously, you just put together a bunch of stuff from Google (I know. I’m doing the same.). I hate paywalls because they only protect the publisher not the author. 

*10 Not to mention her description of Joaquin as ‘that gay greaser serpent.’ Really Alice? One of those words isn’t necessary. One of those adjectives didn’t need to be there and it wasn’t ‘that.’*11

*11 I am aware that ‘that’ is not an adjective. It’s a verb.

*12 My own included. I cannot tell you how many times we had to listen to Cat Steven’s ‘The Cat’s in the Cradle’ on road trips with my father. I now have an unbridled, irrational loathing for that song when I’m in a car for long periods.

*13 A Guide to USDA Maple Syrup Grades, https://skillet.lifehacker.com/a-guide-to-usda-maple-syrup-grades-1802726151. Since they’re all Grade A now, you can take your pick of which category Jason would fall in. My favorite would be “sweet, rich, and full-bodied without being too much of any of those.” Because who is Jason, really? Polly and Cheryl think he hung the moon, his family is (was?) rich, and he’s a football player. But on the other hand he had a sex-point book (groooossssss), they tap the maple syrup trees at the entirely wrong time of year, and he’s pretty twiggy for being a football player. 

*14 They’re not even peonies, Alice. They’re marigolds. 

*15 “Publish one word about this Mom, and I will tell everyone I broke into Ms. Grundy’s car. That I robbed her and made upt he story of their affair. It will be like I finally snapped. Like Polly. It will prove what everyone already thinks about us. ‘Crazy runs in that family.’ Like mother, like daughter.” Why do people say this Betty? Do people think Alice is crazy? Is it because she went to the Nuns to give birth and Hal told everyone she had a mental breakdown? Is she well known for throwing bricks? Has she really bitten the head off a chicken? (Wait, wrong Alice Cooper.)


End file.
